Hades narrows his eyes. “Twenty-seven billion is a highly specific number.”
Poseidon leans back in his seat, an emotion I can’t name in his eyes. He hasn’t hesitated once the entire meal, but now a muscle moves in his jaw. “I got offered a job. A hit on the parents. So I looked them up, did some research.”
My stomach sinks. This is a private family moment, but I have to ask. I have to know if the man I’m with does things like that. It comes out in a whisper. “Did you take the job?”
He takes my hand under the table, his sea-blue eyes meeting mine and holding tight. “No. I don’t take that kind of job unless there’s a good reason.”
“What kind of reason could there be?”
Poseidon seems to choose his words carefully. “There are a few.”
“Nicholas said there was one job you took. He told me when we were on the island.” I feel slightly desperate. Slightly out of control. I want to believe he wouldn’t have done it. “He said you didn’t need the job.”
Understanding dawns. “I didn’t need the money, but there was a reason.” Poseidon brushes my hair back, hooking it over my ear, and leans in so he can whisper to me. The heat of his breath ghosts over the shell of my ear. “He was hurting children, princess. I had to stop him. I was offered a hit, and I took it. I donated the money to a fund to help his victims.”
My eyes widen. It’s hard to think about children suffering, but Poseidon did more than think about it. He helped them. He doesn’t think of himself as a hero. But he’s mine.
“Care to enlighten us?” prompts Zeus.
“No,” Poseidon says, leaning back in his chair. “Anyway, someone else took the contract. I never heard how it went. Never heard anything about it after that. It’s not a pretty business, but the sea is a lawless place. There’s always someone to take a job that pays well.”
“They were shot, point blank,” Zeus comments, slicing another forkful off his piece of cake.
Hades shakes his head. “How the hell did you hear about it?”
“Money isn’t stationary. It flows downstream, if you will. A lot of those assets went through the whorehouse. A lot of that money ended up in my bank accounts.” A charming smile. “It’s a small world, and I know everyone.”
“The shooting wasn’t the worst of it,” Hades says. “Afterward, the business got overwhelmed with embezzlement charges. The parents weren’t around to defend themselves. It was completely dismantled. Everything got taken, down to the picture frames on the walls.”
Poseidon shifts in his chair. “Is there a point to this?”
“I do business with Mason. He’s rebuilding the family wealth one property at a time. Already amassed a sizable fortune, which is how he can afford to buy back his mother’s gems. They were auctioned when the estate was liquidated. He’s been increasingly persistent lately. That’s what he needs me for.”
“I thought you own a diamond mine,” I say.
“Yes. Mostly I sell what we mine, but my personal collection is extensive. It contains rare and antique pieces. I have connections to collectors around the world. He’s intent on finding them, intent on rebuilding.” Hades gives Poseidon a slight smile. “Like you, he can’t let go of the past. He’s chasing it. He thinks it’s about jewelry, but it’s always about something else. Like revenge.”
Poseidon frowns. “I’m not after revenge.”
“Then what are you destroying yourself for?”
“Fuck you,” Poseidon says.
Hades huffs a laugh. “It made me realize, I’ve never inquired about the rosary.”
“It’s barely worth anything.”
“Plenty of the jewelry that passes through my hands has religious significance.” Hades gives a wry smile. “There are plenty of pious rich people in this world.”
“You think they’d be interested in an old silver cross?”
“If it’s old enough it becomes an antique. There’s a market for that stuff. I’m not making any guarantees. Just making the offer to try.”
For a tense moment I think Poseidon is going to refuse him. He’s going to insist on fighting this by himself, shutting out the only family he has left. His eyes close. I can almost imagine him praying. And then he sighs. It’s resigned but maybe a little relieved as well. As if his burden has become a little lighter with help. “Yes,” he says, his voice gruff. “Thank you.”
The dinner goes until late. By the end of dessert Hades is feeding both dogs under the table.
The brothers outlast me. I’m the first to go, because my eyes are closing and I’m going to hit my head on the table when I pass out. Buddy follows me when I leave and finds his spot next to the bed.
I’m drifting between dreams when Poseidon reaches his new quarters.
He crawls directly into bed with me and makes quick work of my panties. He pushes my T-shirt up to my waist. Then he settles himself between my legs and licks me to a sweet, fast orgasm. He laps me up with his tongue, teasing my opening with the tip, and it’s all to prepare me for him.
I sling my arms around his neck and Poseidon pushes into me. His entrance forces a sighing moan from me with the thickness and the stretch. I can’t tell where one stroke ends and one begins. It makes me come again, that relentless rolling drive.
It’s a different rhythm, and I don’t recognize it for what it is until his muscles tense and he comes inside me. It doesn’t make sense until I’m sinking into sleep again, his arm flung across me, his tall frame folded around me.
He was fucking me with the rhythm of the sea.
17
Poseidon
The helicopters start arriving the next day.
One after another, appearing as dots on the horizon that grow and grow until they finally reveal themselves to be even larger than the one Hades and Zeus arrived in. Cargo helicopters, with teams of people and crates full of supplies. Hades and Zeus meet every shipment personally and rebalance the combination of threats from Hades and charm from Zeus until I’m certain none of the people will rat us out.
It’s strange to see my brothers fit themselves neatly into the routine on my ship. Strange that they’re willing to put aside years of pain and do this together. For me. What the hell kinds of conversations have they been having on Hades’ mountain? Or is it just that having tiny, soft babies around changes everyone? They don’t seem much different on the outside. Hades still has his dry, cutting sense of humor and the irritating mastery of whatever he sets his mind to.
And Zeus is still an outrageous motherfucker who senses the perfect laughing insult like blood in the water. People rush to do his bidding like I’ve never seen. They want his money. That’s always part of it. But they want his approval, too.
Maybe they haven’t been changed so much as they’ve been revealed.
Or maybe I was willfully blind before.
Either way, I can’t think about it too much or I start to lose my sea legs. It’s an unsettling emotion. A combination of gratefulness and something else. A pressure around my heart. Not an obligation, exactly. Deeper than that…